Good Morning Sun Shine
by thanatophilia
Summary: A night where beautiful life is real: the sun the moon the stars and the bree-eze.


Jona knew devotion from the first moment Keith touched him. It came in flashes of insight as the Members Elite threatened his life. Keith was lonely like him; he was outcast like him; he was a _liar_ like him, pretending to be human.

Keith Anian was endless, like him. His mind was limitless, his heart was open and weeping.

And Jona loved _him_: the war-machine who dreamt of Terra, of beautiful plants and clear cool water…

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

As Nazca burned, Keith Anian's blood heated. Standing dutifully beside him, Jona could feel it, hear it, smell it. Its intensity made him shake, and though he tried to hide it, he couldn't. By the time Keith finally decided to leave the bridge, he was still shaking, could barely walk, could barely breathe.

Keith scented out his weakness, corned him in the halls, advancing in on his prey. He could have this one too. One more filthy Mu that he could torment. Jona looked terrified of him, his hands rose up to Keith's shoulders to push him back. An alien glow dyed his hands green. His beautiful eyes were wide.

Grinning, devilishly, soullessly, Lieutenant Commander Anian wrapped that thin body up in his strong arms and mashed his mouth to Matsuka's. Jona was very still against him, even his trembling had stopped. Keith wasn't even sure the officer was breathing until he opened his mouth against him, warm and wet. Hands that had attempted to ward him off wound up into his hair, curved to the nape of his neck. The little beast gave its consent

Perhaps they were seen there in the hall. Perhaps one of the many other officers left the celebrations elsewhere on the ship and stumbled across them: Keith Anian elated beyond his control, enthralled with his conquest, Jona Matsuka's legs wrapped around his waist as he cried out wantonly.

It would hardly be a surprising scene. The relations between man and Mu were already joked about in the refectory and the lockers, but it did not diminish the respect and worship and fear that Keith inspired. Perhaps the reality of it would still surprise them. The true danger and power of Keith Anian which Jona withstood daily; the delicate allure of the bumbling valet; the sleek grace of them both as they moved together.

Any onlookers would have to leave, embarrassed and unable to understand the passion and devotion they had just witnessed. Man and Mu would continue undisturbed, uniforms in disarray, mouths close and inseparable, eyes locked—dark depths and amber lights—except in those few moments when Jona tossed his head back with a moan.

Keith could feel every inch of his pet, the hidden strength in his legs, the warm inviting depths of his center, the comfort of his arms, the beat of his heart, the sweat on his neck. Keith kissed him there, tasted it, _needed it_ and found his teeth nibbling after it, leaving purpling bruises where he had been.

He lost control before Jona did, had lost any semblance of it the moment Megido had fired and destroyed that wretched planet. He shuddered with it, groaning into the sweat soaked curls at Jona's ear, pulsating inside his body.

Strength left him, his grip on Matsuka's hips weak, so he leaned into him, crushed him back into the wall, face buried into his sweet smelling shoulder as he tried to relearn how to breathe. Jona mewled for him, squirmed, still hard for him, and Keith lifted his head, gazed into Matsuka's flushed face and hungry aurulent eyes.

"Touch yourself," he invited before kissing him. Jona made a sound of protest, muffled something about their uniforms, which Keith ignored, all his thoughts centered around Jona's mouth, Jona's body, and the too tight clutch of him around his spent erection. He wanted to feel the Mu's completion and it obliged him, stroking itself slowly between them, twitching and gasping against him until its spine straightened, head falling back against the wall, mouth falling open.

Keith's thin probing tongue traced the slack lines of his lips, followed the grooves of his teeth. He only considered putting Jona down once his heartbeat began to slow, as his mind returned to him.

Jona wobbled as he was set on his feet and Keith steadied him, his thoughts still intense, still centered around Jona and the Mu, on Jona and the flush on his face, on Jona and the shaking of his hands as he tried to straighten his soiled uniform. On _Jona_--

Matsuka looked up in surprise. He hadn't been looking, was unsure if Keith had said his name aloud of not. He flinched when Keith raised his hand, expecting to be smacked, but the gloved fingers stroking the line of his jaw were nearly as devastating.

"Do you wish to go celebrate with Serge and the others?" Keith asked him quietly.

Confused, Jona shook his head slowly. No, he did not.

Lieutenant Anian was silent, considering before he stooped down to kiss the Mu once more. Jona's eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks as he leaned in to meet him. They lingered close.

"Keith?" Jona whispered.

The hunter laughed in reply, sadly, brittlely. "This is conquest, Jona," he professed. "This is greed."

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

Jona moved above him. Limbs luminescent in the dark, skin lustrous with sweat. He braced his knees on the floor and pumped, sliding up Keith's cock before he sat back down, eyes closing as he gasped.

Keith watched him, raised up calmly on his elbows, the only signs of his involvement a somewhat heightened pulse rate, and his cock exposed from amongst the folds of his clinging black uniform. He preferred it this way, preferred to give Matsuka as little as possible, no skin, no attention. Only a place to supplicate himself and Keith was always pleased by the little beast's willingness to comply no matter the situation, be it their quarters or the training hall as they were now.

He watched the young officer fuck himself on his cock. He knew he was not Matsuka's first man, Jona took this with too little pain, too little resistance.

"Please," he breathed, not begging for release, was begging instead for Keith not to think of him as a whore. Keith's eyes flashed.

"Stay out of my mind, you animal," he growled, reaching up to take his hips and force him down. Matsuka trembled at his cold anger.

"You're touching me," he whimpered, couldn't keep the man's thoughts out. Just a brush of hands was enough, but this was bodies, this was under the stress of arousal. The pleasure he took from it was obvious, pale erection pink with heat, curved against his stomach, smearing glistening fluid against his perfect skin.

"And how was it when _they_ touched you?" Keith asked him, his voice dark, emotionless. He knew how his emptiness pierced Matsuka's heart, how it hurt him. Keith bucked up into that willing body, smiled wolfishly as the Mu cried out for him. "Did you like it?"

The silence was telling, what he knew of _Matsuka_ was telling. Matsuka knew himself to be dirty, would never have had the confidence to pursue anyone. Yet outwardly he was so beautiful…

"Such a compliant monster," Keith breathed before rolling them over, looming over Jona's body, shaking the vulnerable creature to its core. "Always doing as you're told."

He knew how it would have gone: his old classmate, Murdock, calling Matsuka in to suck him off beneath his desk, smiling down at him, spilling on his face and in his hair before taking his young subordinate from behind. Deaf to Jona's stifled grunts of pain. Murdock would finish with him then, tell him to get dressed and leave and Jona would go.

Or perhaps it was with one of Jona's curious, spiteful peers cornering him in private, whispering what they though of him, beautiful but _so_ stupid. They would cover for his mistakes if he would just open his throat, if he would just spread his legs. They would bully him for it, would use him and then straighten themselves out, leaving as quickly as they'd come.

Jona orgasmed untouched, body quivering. Keith's cruel understanding—his degrading fantasies—pushed him over the edge. Keith sneered down at him, bent him up and finished roughly. He took the pleasure of orgasm, though it was nothing compared to humiliating the Mu.

He left Matsuka on the floor of the training room as he rose and tucked himself away. He watched as his valet stirred, pulling his legs under himself protectively. He would not raise his beautiful eyes and Keith wondered if he had finally broken his fragile toy. No… Jona shifted forward, up onto his knees, looking up from beneath the fall of fine curls over his face, lips parted. He reached up to finish buttoning the lieutenant's slacks.

"You could touch me, without ordering me to," he said softly.

Keith Anian snarled and considered striking the whore, but "You aren't going to," Matsuka breathed peacefully, unflinching.

The Members Elite pulled away from him in disgust, did not hit him, and left the training hall. Matsuka watched after him, controlling his breathing until Keith was out of eyeshot before he shivered, bending forward to lean his head against the floor and just breathe for a moment.

He hadn't been certain of that at all.

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

In his travels, Lieutenant Commander Keith Anian had seen beautiful worlds. Man-made paradises in space, uncultivated Edens floating untouched in the void.

He remembered them as he remembered all things: the information stored in huge detached arrays, each element containing nothing more than a physical address, to a point in time. He had been born of space and nothing; it was his home, just as Terra was his heart.

Jona did not remember his homeworld. He had let the bureaucracy steal his memories of sun and soil, surf and city and family and friends. Of all the things they shared between them, perhaps the loss of friends was what Keith Anian understood best. Though that hardly suggested any indulgence to the Mu's habit of becoming distracted during their on-world missions.

Jona loved the splendors of nature. It was not that he had forgotten their existence; he understood their shapes and concepts. He had merely forgotten his responses to them and each time he accompanied Lieutenant Commander Anian to these worlds… It was like experiencing it for the very first time. The quietness of nature enthralled him.

"Keith, it's so warm here," he murmured blissfully, turning his face back to the sun. His golden eyes glowed in the light and looked positively alien (looked indescribably happy.)

Keith Anian said nothing, simply continued to check the weapons on his belt. They were not here to appreciate the warmth of the sun, they were here to exterminate Jona's brothers and sisters. He looked up sharply at a rustling sound, was surprised to find it was only Jona removing the heavy outer coat of his uniform. The young Mu froze under his attention.

"Should I keep it on?" he asked nervously. Even without it, he was still completely covered by a layer of black fabric. Without the bulk of the jacket, he looked very slim, waist tapering in cleanly. There were still hints of his training as a soldier, clear in the way the dark fabric clung to his arms. Usually the jacket was a relief in cold space, but here…

Keith considered telling him to tough it out, but he valued efficiency over the guidelines of military scripture. He hardly cared whether Jona wore it or not, so he said nothing. He reseated a thin utility knife and then set out from the landing tarmac.

They had come down off from the city at a remote military site; Members Elite, hunting after rumors of Mu in the wilderness. Not a whole tribe, just one or two that had escaped into the woods and evaded capture. The land was just close enough to the city to make burning the pests out an unpleasant prospect, but not an unconsidered one.

First came Keith Anian. Usually, a mission like this could take a week or a month, or _months_ if they were particularly smart beasts. However, this time, he had a new tool. He led Matsuka into the foliage out of sight.

"Find them," he challenged. When Jona opened his mouth to balk, Keith drew his gun on him. "Make yourself useful, or I carry out the mission with you at expense."

It was a heinous thing to ask. Pointedly pitiless: testing, demanding. And Jona couldn't. He just couldn't. How could he betray his own? He was one of them, he belonged. He—recalled distantly turning away from them. Their pleas and kinship falling on deaf ears as he hurried to Keith's side. He didn't belong to them.

He belonged to Keith and there was silence but for the fitful stirring of the world around them. There was strength gathering in Jona's eyes: purpose. He closed them, breathing in deeply, taking in his surroundings even as he extended the tendrils of himself, emerald, powerful, empathetic. He brushed past the sighing of the trees, the howling of the wind, the scurry of the frantic little creatures and the flutter of lazy air-borne songsters.

The stress of such extension, so rarely practiced… it crept up upon him slowly, a feeling like his skin was stretched too thin, dry and crackling, crumbling away from burning muscle and shattering bones. Yet the throb of pain between his eyes eclipsed the sensation.

It felt like a stiff joint, he thought. Something that if he could just hold out, stretch a little further, the pain would ease and—

He brushed the other Mu's mind, and it reached out to him, concerned. Its touch was like cool silk and it followed him back to his body to ease his strain.

_areyouinneed?_

Jona did not reply. He had the scent now, and that was all he required. He opened his eyes again to see Keith staring at him in fascination.

"Well?" he asked.

Jona smiled shakily. "Come on."

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

"Keith?"

They'd left the dead Mu in the forest. Jona had led the way and Keith had broken its neck. They'd buried it in the dirt to keep the other animals from cannibalizing it.

The Lieutenant Commander had put in the call to Mother and now Jona was staring at him hopefully. His curls were damp with sweat, they clung to his forehead.

"What is it?" Keith replied without much interest.

Jona's cheeks flushed, eyes falling as he reconsidered his request, but he found the strength somewhere, asking softly, "Could we stay here an extra day?"

It wasn't what Keith had expected. He had never thought the length of their stay would be questioned. The mission was complete, there was no longer any reason to remain here. He felt his brow furrow in confusion.

"Why?"

His valet looked back up at him from beneath long dusty, shimmering lashes, his lips parted as he tried to gauge without prying into his mind whether Keith was honestly curious or was annoyed. Jona took a step forward, wringing his hands slightly.

"You've never taken leave." Jona flushed under the harsh look Keith gave him, but continued on nervously. "I know, I checked before we came."

"I do not need to take a furlough," the Lieutenant refuted flatly and was surprised when the Mu continued to argue it with him.

"No," he agreed eagerly. "But I thought you might like one."

Keith had no real answer to that. He had never considered a vacation, never imagined a break from the work that was to be done. He had finally formulated a short rebuttal when Jona took his hand.

"It's just one day, Keith," he bargained. "Put the pod in for maintenance. It doesn't have to be wasted time."

Keith frowned, pulling away from him to examine the tiny ship. He ran his hands over the exterior thoughtfully and Jona held his breath, hardly believing he was being listened to.

"It needs it," Keith decided, his stare was still cold when he turned back. "But we can still take another pod in the morning."

Matsuka had hoped for more, but this was better than nothing. They could sleep under the stars instead of amongst them for one more night.

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

Jona woke to the sun on his face and the quiet sounds of Keith exercising in the open room. Jona sat up slowly, light spilling over delicate shoulders just as mussed hair fell over his delicate face. He glanced at the clock. It was long past sunrise.

"I didn't wake up," he noted, horrified by the hour, by having delayed their departure—

"The ship is being worked on."

Keith did not stop the form he was practicing as he said it and Jona simply starred. After a moment, he got up and went to the window, staring out over the yard of the barracks and the city beyond.

He turned to watch the Members Elite then, feeling brave.

"Come out with me."

"Why should I?" Keith responded dully, still flowing through his katas with mindless familiarity.

He expected no answer, but he received one: "Because I helped you yesterday."

Keith Anian stopped at that. He approached the Mu, bracing a hand against the window as he leaned in menacingly. "It wants to be rewarded for its transgressions?"

Jona recoiled from him at first, turning his face away with eyes shut, but when the clockwork dragon did not pull back, he looked up sheepishly.

"Yes," he breathed. His lieutenant's eyebrows pinched for a moment before he smiled, before he lifted Jona's chin and kissed him.

"Go by yourself, I'm not interested," he purred mockingly, pulling away but Jona caught him, wound arms around his neck and drew him back, mouth warm and pliant.

Keith pressed him back against the window, calloused palms following the lines of Jona's sides.

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

Jona Matsuka was not officially his secretary. As senator, Anian had one of those. She was a capable woman with a desk outside his office. She took his calls and sent in documents and forms, she made appointments for him. Outside of Keith's office, all Jona Matsuka was known to do was make the 'coffee' and to make up part of the senator's _entourage_. The secretary and the senatorial aides mocked the young man duly.

Within the office, Matsuka kept up the schedule, advised Keith on which appointments to decline, signed and filed paperwork, made calls to generals and dignitaries, briefed the senator on intel, and served him his coffee with a gentle smile.

There were very few people allowed inside Senator Anian's office, and his secretary was not among them.

She resented Jona Matsuka, duly.

Yet after so many years of Keith's scathing cruelty, the man barely noticed, which surely only infuriated her more.

"You should treat her better," Jona noted softly as he poured the coffee. Keith did not look away from the news report he was watching.

"She should be replaced with an automation system."

For a man so dedicated to humanity's superiority, it was a harsh statement. Jona took it as a kind of flattery. He smiled thinly, looking up from beneath his lashes with laughter in his eyes, challenging whether the senator really meant that or not.

Keith glanced at him and frowned. His gaze shifted when the door opened to admit Serge.

"Your secretary is glowering again, sensei." Serge himself had cultivated a biting envy against Jona Matsuka for many months He'd hated the unearned attention Keith had awarded to him. Somehow, however, over the years he had come to feel differently. Not only was Jona a good friend, he was more dedicated to Keith than anyone else could ever hope to be.

Keith's expression in response to his officer's comment made his feelings on the matter perfectly clear. Serge stifled a laugh.

"I'm here for my orders, sir."

The senator settled back into his chair while Jona went to fetch him a file for him.

"Will you join us for lunch, Serge?" Jona asked as he handed the thin datapad over to Keith. The senator's eyebrows pinched but he did not object, simply scrolled through the pages he'd been handed.

"If it isn't any trouble, I would be honored," Serge answered carefully.

"It's fine," Keith replied, clipped. "And be thorough with this," he added, handing over the information.

His officer saluted crisply and then smiled.

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

Matsuka's lips ghosted his brow.

Keith Anian did not respond at first, continued his reading until the end of the line before setting the book and his reading glasses aside.

Usually, Matsuka was a silent, unobtrusive presence, waiting patiently for orders and denigration. But, sometimes, he forgot himself. He would forgot the feeble repressed thing he had promised to be and the loving young Mu that he truly was would begin to take root.

When Keith turned to glower at him, he could see it brimming over in Matsuka's eyes. He was unmoved as those lips pressed to his own, but neither did he push the younger away from him. Jona smiled, his gentle hand curving to Keith's cheek.

"I'm sorry," the Mu whispered. "I shouldn't have interrupted you."

"Then why did you?" Keith replied irritably. Jona continued to smile.

"Your mind was very peaceful and content while you were reading," he confessed.

Senator Anian brushed his hand away. "Stay out of my mind unless you want me to break you."

Jona hesitated, his hand hanging in the air. He looked sad for a moment and that was pleasing to the man, but it faded.

"Is that really what you want, Keith?" Jona challenged, hands cradling the machine's jaw, tilting his face up to facilitate eye contact. "No one else understands you. I know how much that's always hurt you, watching your friends slip away."

There was no moment of consideration, Keith's fingers found his throat, thumbs digging up painfully into his larynx. "Shut your mouth."

Breathlessly, swallowing uncomfortably, Jona leaned in to him, bent down until their foreheads touched. "I love all that I see, Keith Anian. All of you, even your sadness."

Keith Anian pushed him away, the blackness in him rising up in his features. He stood there, threateningly over the young officer. Jona remembered himself then and bowed his head, hands falling to his sides. Keith gripped a handful of his soft hair, jerked his eyes back up.

"Then act human." He gave the hair another sharp tug, was satisfied when Matsuka winced. Keith released him, returning to his seat and to his book.

Jona stood beside him silently, hands clasped, head bowed.

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

Truthfully, Keith hated his senatorial work. The office, the meetings, the speeches. It was bureaucratic and wasteful. He wanted Jomi's blood on his hands and nothing more. All of this foolishness was merely a means to an end.

There was a beast inside of him.

Like those hideous Mu, he too had his abominations. Inhuman capabilities that were usually kept coiled tight inside his mechanized heart. The beast was made of flesh, was easily injured. He had learned that from Shiroe. He had learned it from Matsuka's eyes. He continued to learn it from every visit with Sam.

He held together well in front of his friend. It was impossibly simple, like making a report, to tell the man about his doings. It was a program he had been taught how to run at a whim. Yet within the privacy of his office, he was filled with rage and sickness.

And Jona could feel his sadness and his hurt as he leaned back against his desk beside him quietly. Keith only saw him from the knees down from his slouched angle. His forehead resting in his fingertips. He did not want the bitch's pity.

"How is he?"

Keith stirred, looking up dully. "He is like a child: happy, oblivious," he spit.

Jona reached out from him, but Keith knocked his hands away. The young Mu accepted that.

"He is happy to see you, it seems," Jona reflected, curling his fingers around the edge of the lifeless desk. "It is more than admirable that you have dedicated yourself to befriending him again regardless of—"

"I _know_," Keith snarled. His thoughts were thrashing, violent. Jona winced, felt a tremor run through him, felt a thrill of satisfaction blossom from Keith at the pain it caused him. Had he been smarter, Jona would have fled then, but he did not.

"Keith," he whispered, entreating the man to accept his comfort.

"What do you think you're accomplishing with your saccharine altruism?" Keith hissed. "This is what you monsters do to us, your powers run unchecked, they taint us all."

Jona said nothing.

"You can whisper your platitudes, Matsuka, what you say means nothing."

Despite his rage, Keith was not looking at him. He was staring at his hands, clenched in his lap. Jona left his perch on the desk to kneel beside him, look up into his darkness.

"I am on your leash, Senator Anian," he murmured. "If you are dissatisfied, you have never hesitated to punish me."

Saccharine altruism, Keith called it. He'd called in martyrdom before and it was not the first time Jona had shouldered the sins of all the Mu for this man. Keith had recognized him for what he was in an instant and the farce had only gotten weaker over time. Familiarity and faithful service thinning the prejudice but… the wounded beast that was Keith needed supplication now.

Jona was passive under Keith's hand fisted in his hair, silent in the face of a litany of degradation. Compliant to his subservience and humiliation.

Keith's skin tasted like his hatred and his rage. Taking him into his mouth was nearly enough to choke all other senses, it was so cloying.

But Jona let him have his fill of rage. Would not deny it to him like his beautiful Mother Eliza had.

His fair eyelashes fluttering like trapped butterflies as he gagged.

* * *

(SHOOTING STAR)

* * *

Until the emotions cooled, Jona played his part. To an observer outside their private relationship, there were no signs of change. The senator was grim and professional, his valet was quavering.

What they did behind closed doors was their business and their business alone.

There were no bruises to hide, not tears to shed. Keith was a rational man and he tamed his own demons with the efficiency he displayed in all other aspects of his life. Yet their passage left a bitter taste in his mouth: his own weakness.

When reason once again ruled his heart, he went looking for his pet monster, found him in their kitchen. His cabinet members had tried to insist he take on a household staff, but Keith had refused. He traveled too often and didn't want the extra people in the mansion. Matsuka could cook well enough; the house could be cleaned while he was away.

He found Jona measuring water and rice. He stood to one side and watched him silently. Jona glanced at the man once but made no comment. He went about his business, working on the fragrant sauce he would pour over the rice. He turned to ask Keith if he was hungry and the senator nodded. He accepted the food when it was offered and they ate together at the counter.

Perhaps the atmosphere was strained, but Keith was never one to notice such things and Jona said nothing. When their dinner was complete, they parted to pursue separate rituals, Jona to the shower and Ketih to his study. He read for as long as it would hold his attention, he stretched and ran through the lighter forms in preparation for settling down for the ngiht.

They rejoined each other in the bedroom where Jona expected to be asked to leave. There was a guest bedroom down the hall where he sometimes slept when Keith simply could no longer stand the sight of him.

But the senator was waiting for him, welcomed him to the bed and Jona settled down into the crook of his arm, trying to read the man's mood with little success. Keith wasn't asleep, so he supposed there was something yet to be said, but he had no inkling as to what. He pushed up slowly to kiss the man's jaw.

Senator Anian's dark eyes turned towards him, glittering beads void of anything discernable. Keith brushed the hair away from Matsuka's eyes before he settled over top of him, looking down at the beautiful Mu that kept itself as his slave.

Jona was still and quiet beneath him, golden eyes calm, curious. They widened slightly as Keith's palms cupped his hips, toyed with his waistline, and pale curling pubic hair before closing around him.

"Keith," he murmured uncertainly, but shuddered as those fingers squeezed and stroked.

The man remained calm above him, continued his torments, only responding when Jona reached out to touch him.

"Hush," he said.

Jona inhaled sharply in reply, hands falling to the sheets, head thrashing on the pillow. Keith coaxed him to peak, milked him through methodically, watching the beast's pleasure with intense interest.

When he pulled his hand away, Jona caught it up and kissed the stickiness from the man's fingers breathlessly. He offered himself over to Keith in that way and the man declined.

"What does a beaten dog have to offer," he whispered gruffly, tracing Matsuka's lower lip. Jona's eyes trembled closed. He licked his dry lips, catching the tips of his master's fingers.

"Keith," he murmured lax against the mattress, beneath his weight. "I love you."

Keith Anian said nothing. He rose from the bed and Jona did not watch him go.

He curled up in the blankets instead and when he woke, Keith was beside him once more.

G(SUN)(MOON)D M(STAR)RNING, KEITH ANIAN.

* * *

**Standard Disclaimers.**


End file.
